Takeda to win EU ap­proval for €54bn takeover of Shire

JA­PANESE drug­maker Takeda Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal is set to win con­di­tional EU an­titrust ap­proval for its $62bn (€54bn) bid for Dublin-head­quar­tered Shire, the big­gest ever over­seas ac­qui­si­tion by a Ja­panese com­pany, two peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter said on Fri­day.

Both com­pa­nies have op­er­a­tions in Ire­land, but are rel­a­tively small com­pared to ri­vals like Pfizer and MDS’S Ir­ish busi­nesses. Takeda em­ploys around 400 in three Ir­ish units, one plant in Bray, Co Wick­low, and two sites in Dublin.

Shire con­tro­ver­sially moved its of­fi­cial head­quar­ters from the UK to Ire­land in 2008, help­ing re­duce its tax bill. But its main busi­ness is in the US.

Last month, Takeda of­fered to di­vest Shire Plc’s pipe­line com­pound SHP647 along with some as­so­ci­ated rights af­ter the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion voiced con­cerns about the over­lap with its own drug for in­flam­ma­tory bowel dis­ease called En­tyvio.

En­tyvio, a treat­ment for Crohn’s dis­ease and ul­cer­a­tive coli­tis, is Takeda’s big­gest-sell­ing drug. Shire’s shares moved into pos­i­tive ter­ri­tory in Lon­don fol­low­ing the Reuters story, clos­ing up 0.28pc.